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Hungarian or Presburg Zwieback

Twice-baked bread fingers coated with meringue icing and chopped almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Hungarian or Presburg Zwieback

Ingredients

Directions

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough into long fingers, making the ends larger than the center, similar to ladyfingers.

  2. Proof the dough and bake it like other zwieback.

  3. Cut the baked zwieback in half and dry-toast it.

Ice and dry

  1. Prepare a light meringue icing by beating the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Gradually add the powdered sugar and mix in the chopped almonds.

  3. Spread the icing on the toasted side of the zwieback.

  4. Return the zwieback to the oven to dry.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  2. Almond + breadtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together858 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetylpyrazine (roast).

  3. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + almondtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped to form the light meringue icing that gives the topping its airy structure.
Powdered sugar
Dissolves into the whipped whites to sweeten and stabilize the meringue icing.
Chopped almonds
Add crunch and nutty flavor to the meringue topping.
Bread or zwieback
Forms the crisp, dry base that the icing is spread onto.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be whipped to stiff peaks to trap air, which gives the meringue its light structure. Under-whipped whites produce a dense, runny icing that will not hold on the zwieback.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, bread):

  1. Pecansfits about as well
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Peasfits about as well
  4. Almondthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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